F1 Austrian GP: Max-imum attack puts Verstappen in points range

Max Verstappen qualifies a lofty seventh for the Austrian Grand Prix, but is confident he won't lose ground in the race as he did in Spain.

Max Verstappen has set his sights on getting more points on the board in the Austrian Grand Prix after an impressive run to seventh position on the grid for Toro Rosso.

On what has been a strong weekend for the Dutchman, who is taking advantage of having rare prior knowledge of an F1 circuit having competed at the Red Bull Ring last season in F3, Verstappen successfully carried his top ten free practice pace all the way through to Q3 in qualifying.

Proceeding to put the Toro Rosso seventh on the grid - ahead of Red Bull stablemate Daniil Kvyat -, the youngster was pleased with what he believes was the best result possible.

"I think the whole weekend has been very good," he said. "I think we really maximised the car in qualifying. In FP1 we did a lot of things on the car with the new updates, in FP2 we improved it again and FP3 was very good. Then we continued like that in qualifying. I think P7 was the maximum because to find three tenths on this track isn't easy."

Having started higher for the Spanish Grand Prix, only to fall foul of more powerful cars behind him in the race, Verstappen is confident a more aggressive approach won't see him tumble down the order so rapidly this time.

"I think we made some mistakes in Barcelona and we were too conservative on the tyres, so we can push more on them," he continued. "Afterwards we have improved our race pace. Even in Canada we were quite fast but we couldn't get past. Now we are in a better starting position for the race."

Verstappen has managed just a single top ten finish in his rookie season so far, a seventh place in Malaysia.